


Heavy

by SickBacchus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Codependency, Incest, Light Angst, M/M, One Shot, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Dean Winchester, Relationship Study, Sibling Incest, Unhealthy Relationships, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 08:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1462741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SickBacchus/pseuds/SickBacchus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>4 times Dean could carry Sam, and 1 time he couldn't.<br/>-<br/>As Sam grows he is beginning to enjoy things like healthy boundaries, non-codependent relationships, and self sufficiency.</p><p>All of this scares the shit out of Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy

**1**

John pushed Sammy into Dean’s arms. He stumbled under the weight. Mom never let him hold his brother unless he was sitting down, and even then she hovered, ready to snatch him back at any moment.

He clutched Sammy to his chest, an arm under his head like Mom always said. John shouted at him, and he jumped. “Now Dean! Go!”

Dean turned on his heel and ran. He expected John to follow him, but instead he heard his dad turn away and run back, leaving them.

Dean made his way down the treacherous steps. He ignored his mom’s voice in his head that told him not to run on the stairs or he’d break his neck, and tightened his sweaty fists in Sammy’s blankets.

He ran out the door and hit the cold grass with his bare feet. His dad was still inside.

Dean had been an only child for three years before Sam was born. During that time he had often wondered who his mother loved best, himself or John. He cherished being his mother’s pet, and had thrown jealous tantrums when her attention shifted to John.

But he felt no jealousy when Sam was born. Mary and Dean adored Sammy together, and they loved each other more through their shared devotion.

Dean had never spared a thought for who John’s heart belonged to. It had always been clear. John had always belonged to Mary.

And now John had given Sam to Dean. Transferred ownership and abandoned them both to go back to Mary. Dean tried to feel angry with John for a moment, but let it go. He knew he would have left John for his mother’s sake in an instant. And he had just left behind John and Mary both in a burning house, for Sam.

Sam gurgled against his chest, and the world simplified. Dean holding Sam as everything else in his world burned to nothing. But Sam was safe, was in his arms, and they belonged to each other. As long as that was true, Dean could survive anything.

“It’s OK, Sammy,” he said.

 

**2**

When Sam was two years old John started moving them around. Dean didn’t like it, but it was better than when they lived in the Kansas apartment by their old house and Dad was always angry.

After they left they spent most of their time driving, and slept in small houses that had only one room and two beds.

John used to share with Sam, and Dean slept alone. Finally John tired of Dean and Sam’s crying, and let them share a bed, surrounded by pillows so they wouldn’t roll off the edge.

When John was in the shower, Dean took the opportunity to jump on the bed. He used his weight to bounce Sam, reveling in the way it made him shriek with laughter. Until Dean landed on him, knee in his stomach.

Sam opened his mouth in a breathless and silent scream. Dean froze in horror. He recognized it as the prelude Sam’s loudest and most terrible cry. Tears filled Sam’s eyes as he gasped in air, and let out a piercing shriek. Dean scrambled to put his arms around the toddler.

Sam buried his wet face into Dean’s shirt, muffling his cries a bit. “Hey Sammy, I’m sorry.” Sam hiccupped painfully, and his sobs began to ease.

John tumbled from the bathroom, pulling on his jeans.

“What did you do, Dean?” John pulled Sam from Dean’s arms, cradling the tiny child against his huge chest.

“It’s all right, son. I’m here,” John murmured at the toddler. Little Sammy disappeared into in John’s big hands. Dean marveled at his father’s strength for a moment, until Sam’s cries grew louder. He stood as tall as he could, reaching his little hands up past his father’s large ones, and grasped Sam’s wrist.

“I’ve got you Sammy,” Dean called up.

Sam’s cries eased into whimpers, and Dean watched him struggle in John’s arms. John looked down at Sam, his son trying to escape his grasp. Dean felt a stab of pity, but held tight to Sam’s wrist all the same.

Finally, John dropped Sam into Dean’s arms, and Sam curled himself around his big brother, pressing his wet, tear stained face into Dean’s neck. Dean bounced and soothed him as John hunched on his own bed, watching Dean succeed where he failed. Dean hoped John didn't think of Mary when he saw him and Sam together, and remember with envy what it was like to belong to someone completely. But Dean knew he did.

His dad’s face seemed suddenly ancient. John ran his hands through his hair, and Dean noticed flecks of grey.

Dean turned away, scared to look at his father, knowing he'd be as broken if he lost Sam.

He pressed his face to Sam's soft hair. “I’ve got you.”

 

**3**

Sam was fifteen the first time he was hurt during a hunt. 

Dean yelled as a poltergeist threw his brother across the room. Sam hit the wall with a sickening crack. He slid down the wall as Dean ran towards him, leaping over broken furniture, dodging flying debris.

A chair flew at Sam, and Dean dove, falling over him, covering Sam with his body. The chair cracked against Dean’s skull, and his head swam. He felt Sam’s hand grab at his collar unsteadily, and he pulled back to look at Sam’s face.

Sam blinked, trying to focus his eyes. “Dean?”

“Yeah, Sam, I gotcha.”

Sam groaned. “Did dad see me get thrown?”

“Nah, don’t worry. He’s in the living room.”

“Good.” Another piece of broken furniture whipped around the room, catching Dean in the ear. Dean hissed, and Sam wrapped his hands around the back of Dean’s head and neck as if that could protect Dean. Dean pulled Sam’s hands away.

“Can you get up, Sammy?”

Sam tried, then shook his head. “God, this is so embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dean said. “Let’s just get outta here. Live to fight another day.”

Dean wrapped an arm around Sam’s shoulders, another under his knees, and hefted Sam up. He stumbled back under the weight, still dizzy from the knock on his head.

Sam tried to wrench out of his arms, his face crimson with humiliation as Dean carried him towards the front door. “Stop moving, bitch. Dad can’t see you.”

He made it out the front door and dropped Sam as gently as he could before collapsing beside him.

They lay next to each other in the front yard, the cold, damp grass soaking through the back of their shirts.  Dean could hear the blast of a shotgun from inside.

“Sounds like Dad’s taking care of it,” Sam said.

“Yeah…” Now that Sam was out of the line of fire, Dean’s sense of duty returned. He stood up to go back in the house. Sam reached out and caught him by the cuff of his jeans. Dean looked down. Sam was still staring straight up at the sky.

“Dean,” he said.

Dean waited for him to continue. Sam didn’t say anything, but tightened his grip on Dean’s pants. His jaw tightened and he swallowed. Dean looked down at where Sam gripped him, fingers trembling.

Dean looked back at the house for a moment, then sat down next to Sam. Dad would be fine without him. But Sam was his, was his responsibility. It would take more than a haunting for Dean to walk away when Sam needed him.

“Yeah, Dad can take care of it.” He put a hand in Sam’s hair, and ruffled it. “Don’t worry to much about getting sucker punched by a poltergeist. Same thing happened to me when I was fifteen.”

Sam smiled. “Really?”

It hadn’t. Dean had never been knocked out by a poltergeist in his life, but looking at the comforted smile on Sam’s face erased any guilt, and he proceeded to weave a story about his own shameful defeat at the hands of a poltergeist.

 

**4**

When Sam was seventeen he started receiving letters. Letters in large envelopes, the embossed font fluid and official.

Sam would tuck the letters away before John found them. It was easy to hide things from their Dad, and they had years of practice. But when John was gone, and Sam was in the shower, Dean would rifle through Sam’s stuff until he found them, stashed between the pages of Sam’s AP Gov textbook.

He dumped them all on the kitchen table, and read the official typography.

_UCLA, Ohio State, University of Kansas, Stanford, USC…_

The bedroom door creaked behind him. Dean turned to see Sam frozen in the doorframe. He wore his pajama sweatpants and old t-shirt, a hand me down from Dean, and his damp hair dripped rivulets down his neck.

Sam’s mouth twisted as he looked past Dean at the envelopes. “I told you to stop going through my shit, Dean.”

Dean hated Sam’s recent obsession with Dean being too involved in his stuff, his business, his problems. “Boundaries” Sam called it. Dean knew it would lead to trouble.

Dean stood and Sam took a step back. Dean walked to him. Sam gripped the doorframe, knuckles white, as if readying himself for a fight, for Dean to throw a punch.

Dean raised his hand, and Sam flinched. His fingers hesitated over Sam’s cheek for a moment before he lost his courage, and his hand landed in Sam’s hair.

“Don’t leave.”

The color drained from Sam’s face. But he didn’t answer. He didn’t say, “OK.” He didn’t say, “Fine.” He didn’t say, “I never would.”

Instead his eyes flicked away from Dean’s, and he leaned, slowly, as if he was no longer able to support his weight, and pressed his face into Dean’s neck.

Dean could feel his pulse quicken. He was sure Sam could feel in too.

Sam’s wet hair tickled his nose, and he turned his face into it, pressing a hard kiss to the top of Sam’s head. The water from Sam’s hair wet his lips and dripped down his chin.

“Don’t go.”

Sam didn’t answer.

“You can’t go,” Dean whispered into Sam’s hair. “You’re mine. You’re mine.” He gripped Sam’s hair tighter, felt Sam wince. “Dad gave you to me. You can’t go.”

Sam pulled back. He frowned at Dean as if he had said something strange. As if Dean was not stating a simple fact. Sam stared at Dean, but still, he didn’t answer.

Dean opened his mouth to continue, but stopped when Sam’s lips covered his.

“Shut up,” Sam breathed, his breath hot on Dean’s lips.

“Stay with me, Sam.” Sam kissed him again.

“Please.” Another kiss.

“Stay.” A bite.

Dean licked his lips and tasted blood.

“Shut the hell up, Dean.”

Dean grabbed Sam by the hips and lifted him up against the wall. Sam’s arms made their way around his shoulders, his legs wrapped around Dean’s waist. Sam dragged his lips over Dean’s jaw, and Dean choked out a whisper.

“Please stay.”

Sam didn’t answer.

 

**+1**

A week before Sam turned twenty-three, a vengeful spirit managed to knock him unconscious just before Dean lit up the corpse.

It went up in flames, and the spirit disappeared over Sam’s body.

Dean kneeled over Sam, checked his pulse, hovered his hand over Sam’s lips and felt his hot breaths puff strong against his fingers. He sighed in relief.

The Impala was parked outside the graveyard, over a hundred yards away. The cops were likely on their way, considering the racket they had just made.

Dean looked down at Sam’s body, so much bigger than his old Sammy. The old Sam was so easy to carry around, to shield with his own body, to tuck into the backseat and drive away from danger. The new Sam that he’d managed to steal back from Stanford was so large and unwieldy.

He tried to get Sam up on his back like when he would give Sam a piggyback ride. Sam’s head lolled on his shoulder in a familiar way, but Sam’s feet dragged on the ground behind him, and his weight became too much after a few feet. Dean eased him back to the ground, choking on his frustration.

Dean looked down at Sam, enormous even when he was laid in heap. It was as if Sam had grown so large out of spite. Just so Dean couldn’t protect and keep him like he used to. To destroy Dean’s role as big brother in every way he could, literal and figurative.

Dean wrapped his arms under Sam’s, around his chest, and dragged him towards the car. His back strained with the effort. The old song played in his head. _He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother._ He snorted bitterly.

Dean leaned Sam against the side of the Impala as he opened the passenger door. With a great deal of effort he managed to get Sam into the passengers seat. He cursed as the dirt that had collected on Sam’s jeans when Dean dragged him across the graveyard brushed off onto the leather seats. He would make Sam clean Baby out later.

Right now Sam’s head leaned back against the white leather. He looked peaceful. If Dean ignored the clod of dirt stuck matting his hair, it was as if he was just sleeping.

“Let’s get out of here, and I’ll fix you up Sammy.”

Sam’s sleeping face looked so young, like he had looked when he enjoyed being Dean’s, instead of fighting it at every step.

On instinct Dean leaned down, kissed Sam’s forehead like a child. He hesitated a moment, then thinking it might be his only chance for years, maybe ever, kissed Sam’s slack mouth.

He stayed still as long as he dared, no more than a second, before he pulled back. The glint of the streetlights reflected in Sam’s open eyes. Sam blinked.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Dean yanked his head away. “I drag you across a goddamn field, and that wakes you up? Who are you, Sleeping Beauty? Jesus Christ.”

Sam stared at him, and Dean slammed the door in Sam’s face. Sam’s eyes gazed at him through the window, mouth open in surprise.

Dean moved around the car to the driver’s side. He fumbled with the keys before he finally managed to get the door open.

He avoided Sam’s eyes as he sat down. Without speaking he started the car and drove away from the graveyard.

After a few minutes of silence, Dean reached to turn on the radio. Before he could reach it, Sam’s hand covered his, pulled it back.

“Dean…”

Dean couldn’t bear to look over.

“Remember the first time we…” Sam faded off, but Dean knew what he meant. They first time they had kissed. It had also been the last time, until now. “You know I couldn’t stay with you, Dean. I had to leave.”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

Sam continued anyway. “I had to leave. What you always said, that I was yours… it was true. And I couldn’t stand it.”

Dean pulled the car over, put it into park.  “Shut up, Sam.”

“And even though I came back I still don’t…”

“I knew you would,” Dean says, his voice bitter. It was true. He knew Sam would come back. Knew he couldn’t leave him, not for good. But more importantly, he needed to change the subject. He was sure that if he let Sam finished his sentence he would never be able to get over it.

Sam ignored Dean's tone, but not his interruption. “I knew I would come back too. But I needed to go to see if I could live without you. And I can.”

Dean’s heart sunk into his stomach.

“And you can live without me,” Sam added. He sounded so happy about it that Dean decided not to correct him.

Sam grabbed his shoulder, and Dean looked over. Sam was beaming at him. “Can’t you see how much better this is? The way we needed each other before was… it was sick. We thought we needed each other to live, to be whole. To stay together for those reasons isn’t love, its just survival.”

Dean disagreed. He wanted to say he didn’t know how to love any other way. He didn’t want to learn. But he knew that wasn’t what Sam wanted to hear, so he kept his mouth shut as Sam continued.

“I came back by choice. I can live without you. But I don’t want to.” Dean supposed that was romantic. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to him. But he was too stuck by the revelation that Sam didn’t need him the way he needed Sam to appreciate it. Sam was smiling at him, and Dean mirrored it.

Sam’s hand slid down from Dean’s shoulder to his wrist. With a yank, he pulled Dean to the passengers seat and manhandled him into his lap with little effort.

“No fucking way, man,” Dean said, pushing off Sam’s chest, but Sam held him steady. He clasped Dean’s face in his hands, pressed his smiling lips to the side of Dean’s mouth.

“C’mon Dean, let me be in charge every once in awhile, now that I’ve outgrown you.” Dean knew he meant physically, but it hurt just the same.

Sam nuzzled at Dean’s neck, nipping small bites as Dean mourned that Sam didn’t belong to him anymore. John had given Sam to Dean all those years ago, but Sam had escaped.

And even so, Dean still belonged to Sam.

Sam could live without him. Not as well, not as happily, but he could live. Sam was a whole person on his own. And Sam was happy to believe that Dean was a whole person without Sam.

Dean pressed his lips to Sam’s temple, flashed Sam his most convincing grin, and swore to never let Sam know how wrong he was.

           


End file.
